OK, techinically my partners and I knocked on +250 doors today. Still I feel pretty good about that number. I feel even better about the responses I got. I started at 9am and didn't get home until 8pm, well after dark, in fact the last house we went to we had to search for in the dark, and let me tell you it was well worth it.
First, this is for all you worry warts that think we're a bunch of panty-waists here in IN and don't know how to GOTV. We had +100 teams of two go out of the local Obama and Democratic offices. If the average team knocked on 100 doors today, that's 10,000 doors today alone!
Seccond, my badge of honor: my knuckles are literally bruised and covered with that cheap white epoxy that is on every single screen door in America.
Third, if you live in the Lafayette, IN area please come help us. I am definately not the type of person who likes to do this kind of stuff. But it is SO rewarding. Keep reading to see my highlights today. Come down to 5th and Main tomorrow to have some of your own.
Lafayette, IN. This is a blue collar town. Although only a river seperates West Lafayette (where Purdue is) and Lafayette, it might as well be a brick wall. Not so much now, but that has been the case historically. There is a fair amount of industry in Lafayette, we have a Subaru and Catapiller Plant as well as some other industry in the area. My personal impression of the town (and I will state right here that this is biased and probably very wrong) was that it was a deep red town. After today I no longer think that.
I also need to give credit to the amazing volunteers that did the really hard work before me in contacting all voters and finding out who the 'soft Democrats' are (newly registered and sporadic voters who are listed as Democrats). That brick wall I mentioned above isn't really that hard these days, lots of college kids live in Lafayette. I started to cringe when I saw the person who lived at an address was listed as 25 yrs or younger because I knew I wouldn't be talking to that person. But it turned out really good. Keep this in the back of your mind.
The Weather. The weather today was gorgeous. 70+ and sunny most of the day. I dressed for a typical cool early Nov. Lafayette day and was sweating like a pig in mid afternoon. FYI, the fact that I smelled like I just spent 14 hours in the primate house didn't deter me from my task. Personally, this was good for me because it meant I wasn't canvassing in 40 degree rain. It was bad for Obama because probably half the people in the three turfs I covered were out enjoying the day.
The Brass Tacks. As I've already stated, our goal today was to contact registered Democratic voters, but this is a college town and probably half of the people I talked to today weren't the people on my list. This is were it gets good. Let me throw some ball-bark figures at you. Let's say 125 people weren't home. Because of the way my partners worked out I talked to about 75 of those who were home (what can I say, I'm a talker!). Of that 75, probably 10-15, let's just say 15 said NO! A big NO, head-shaking, I won't vote for him, we're a McCain household...etc, but they were all polite about it. No rants. Just a definiative no. But they all let me cross-check our database and except for 2-3 people they were not the people on my canvass sheet.
What about the other 60 people? A majority had already voted, or were going out to vote today! It was awesome. The other thing is enthusiasim. People, all people, Black, White, Yellow, Brown, Women, Men want to vote for Barack. They just don't want to vote, they want to share their experience voting for Barack. It truly is amazing. We handed out lawn signs, stickers, buttons, and most importantly early voting locations to many, many people. And alot of these people had already voted. I've also found a compelling way (courtesy of the local office) to construct a very sellable way to get people to bring friends and relatives to the polling places (details in The Electrofying Conclusion).
The Good Stuff. These are the three experiences that really made me feel good today. Although, I had do many I'm limiting this to these three.
#1: The Non-Voter: On my 6th or 7th door this morning I met a newly registered voter who basically said they didn't want to vote because it was thier first time and didn't know what to do. And then backed this with saying that they didn't want to get identified with voting for a 'Bad' President like Bush. This is where I unwittinly went to work. Before I knew it, I had this person move from 'I won't vote' to 'I will vote'. Now, I will make sure there is follow up, but damn-it-all if it didn't make me feel good to get two votes (thier significant other, too).
#2 The Psych-Out: I went to a door today (and I try to create a little distance between me and the person I'm addressing to seem less threatining), and this guy comes out of the door and I get out my I'm with the Obama Campaign schpiel, and he get in my face and says: 'I don't want to talk to you'. He expertly waited that fraction of a second to let me crap my pants before saying 'because I voted for our man today!'. What transpired was that a late-50's-early-60's man late-50's early 60's man got teary-eyed in front of me. He was so proud that he voted for Obama. He was so glad that a complete stranger came to his Indiana door to make sure he (and as it turns out his whole family) voted for Barack that he wouldn't let me go. And we talked, and we high-fived (and I think he would've hugged me if I let him...I like to keep a little distance between my canvesees(?)).
For me it wss a real connection. Here was a man that likes to be a Jackass (like me) who gets tears in his eyes when he really thinks about what he and his family are voting for (like me).
#3 The Last Door. Many of us have been there. You get to the end of your Turf sheet and there's that crazy outlier that is blocks away from everything you canvassed in that Turf. It's night, you can't read the addresses and you've been out all day and you just want to go home. Don't give up on that last number! My partner and I drove over to this outlier from all the other houses we spent the last three hours canvassing. It paid off big-time (honesly, do people still use this term, I may need uo update my vocabulary to the 21st century). A young familiy, both Obama supporters but weren't well informed on early voting. They are going tomorrow (because we hit their house when it was 7:45 here and pitch-black and the voting centers were closed). They also wanted a yard sign, we gave them one. They were excited. And so were we.
THe Electrifying Conclusion: This is for all swing state canvassers. You'll have to modify it to your state. But it goes a little something like this: An Obama win could be as little as ten-thousand votes state wide. (On average) That means that that here in the Lafayette Precinct, the vote for the next President of the United State could be decided by eight votes. Let me tell you this is where you see the light-bulb go on in peoples minds. This is a great in, not to get them to drive down to HQ and volunteer, it a great in for 'soft volunteering', to get thier family and friends out to vote. This light-bulb went off multiple times today, and you can actually see it turning on. It is what I call a 'Holy Shit' moment. Use it.
Moew tommarrow